Hake Family Blog

I have perhaps more vivid memories of a thermodynamics class that I took in college than of any other class. (With the exception of Organic Chemistry which was taught by the most dynamic professor I ever had.) It was a special honors class with only a handful of students, maybe seven of us and the professor. It was the kind of class where everybody had a 4.0 and it was pretty much assumed you would get an A. I was the only one in that class that did not go on to MIT or med school or some other decent grad school program. Getting the B I got was a significant reprimand, shocking to the other participants in the seminar class. My memory is so painfully keen because I was often mortified to step through the door into his office, where we met. We sat around in a small circle. He expected us to be thoroughly prepared, and able to work with the material he had assigned us to read. We would discuss and debate questions and work on fun nasty problems, but he never fed us the information that he told us to get from the text. If you hadn’t read the assigned pages on time it was extremely embarrassing. There was no way to pretend you had! Not being prepared once would have been ok, but I came in that way on several occasions. I betrayed the professor’s hopes and plans for this seminar format. 🙁 Nevertheless I thought the material was intriguing. I liked it. I think the professor liked me, albeit he was a little frustrated with me. I would have loved to have put in the time I should have.

Probably half of what we learned back then is obsolete now and I’m sure there’s much more to learn now than there was in those ancient days… Wish I wasn’t so old. I wonder if there will be thermodynamics seminars in heaven for saints who blew it on earth. 🙂

No, Wade’s wedding is not this weekend. It will be on February 28. It should work fine for you to call about taxes etc. this weekend.

Joel had his fourth snow day in a row today. He said he feels like he is retired. They are out sledding with the kids for a one hour recess from home school.